1. George W. Bush passed multi-billion dollar stimuluses on his watch as well. The crisis unfolded in the summer of 2008, remember.

2. In the face of a major downturn, "spending your way out" is the ONLY reliable way to ameliorate it, at least temporarily. You could argue this is just kicking the can down the road, but Democrats did not invert Keynesian economics [wikipedia.org], nor is it a major part of their platform, nor is the Republican platform particularly against it. (On the topic of fiscal responsibility, most of the time they appear to be stuck in the old, rather incoherent anti-Communist propaganda modes. I doubt the majority of them have ever used the word "Keynesian".)

3. Quantitative Easing:...you do realize that the Federal Reserve of the United States of America answers to neither Congress nor the President, right? They can do whatever the hell they want and no one can veto it. They were the ones responsible for the QEs, and they were run by a Republican [wikipedia.org] during all three QEs.

1) I said nothing about Bush Jr. What does he even have to do with the conversation?2) You understand that not everyone worships at the Holy Altar of Keynes, right? 'Broken Windows' is bullshit of the highest order, a perfect credo to justify politicians spending money on their pet projects.3) If you think Fed policy isn't guided by the general policies who sits in the Oval Office, you're kidding yourself. You know who appoints the Fed, right?

...Last night I looked for The Lobster and found it was only on DVD...Pondering of the relative merits of early vs. late release timing when the current situation is there is no release at all is moot.

Just because you've elected to move past DVDs doesn't mean there is "no release at all." It means you can't figure out how to take advantage of the release that is readily available. Just because the industry hasn't decided to adapt to your standard yet doesn't mean they're somehow trying to keep the movie from you.

Anyone who defends this convenience-over-privacy should download and print Jihadi-type information, nuke plans, bio-weapons info, etc. through this service and see how long it is before there is a knock on their door.

Who on their right mind is going to spend hundreds of dollars for some minor functionality?

Back in the 1980s, I remember thinking "If only there was a way to have my girlfriend (at the time) send me her pulse so I could feel her love on my own wrist in real-time. Of course the technology wasn't there, and wouldn't be for some time, so I had to settle for her bloody heart in a jar and 25 years in a psychiatric hospital.

Yep. I have a friend who worked for a now-defunct ad placement firm. They hired people specifically for the purpose of figuring out ways around ad blockers. Of course that was dumb, because for people who are determined not to be tracked and force-fed ads, that simply makes them more determined to find ways to block things.

I recently went to renew my/. subscription because it has been some time since I last had. They are no longer offering subscriptions, not sure if it's temporary or not. One of the nice things with it was the option to turn off ads. I still run uMatrix and uBlock Origin on the site but still wanted to support them.

So it seems like they may be going straight for an ad & tracker supported model.

You're at least 20 years too late for that. Playing outside is too dangerous for our modern youngsters. Now we can just VR playing outside from the safety of our padded rooms.

I think there were only a handful of my late-teen/early-twenty years where I was in danger of playing my music beyond the pain threshold. Most people (even most kids) are smart enough for the "If it hurts, stop it," rule.

What gets me are the "So? Every other company does it." as if that makes it right. These are the same people that check in on Facebook, leave location metadata on in photos, and run Google Maps in the background because it gives them the warm fuzzies thinking they're helping.